The present disclosure generally relates to aircraft cabin management. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to an aircraft cabin management panel and an aircraft cabin management system comprising the panel.
The aircraft cabin is the section of an aircraft in which passengers travel. Typically, a cabin is divided into several parts including areas for passengers, comprising seats arranged in rows and alleys, as well as areas for flight attendants, such as the galley and areas close to the exit doors. Cabin management systems generally allow operating and monitoring cabin related functions provided to both passengers and the crew including, for example, controlling the cabin temperature, controlling the cabin illumination, controlling emergency and evacuation signaling, controlling the in-flight entertainment system, making passenger announcements, making crew-internal calls, monitoring the water and waste tank level, monitoring lavatory smoke indication, and monitoring the door and escape slide pressure status.
Known cabin management systems typically include a central server provided redundantly and located at the avionics compartment at the nose of an aircraft. The server forms the central control and interface component of the cabin management system. The server is connected to a flight attendant panel installed within the cabin and providing a remote user interface that may be operated by aircraft personnel to control and monitor the various functions around the cabin. Aircraft systems under control of the server are connected to the server via respective interfaces. For passenger related functions, the server is connected to a number of distributor units installed in the cabin ceiling above the passenger seats which allow connections to passenger service units or cabin illumination units. For crew related systems, the server is connected to a number of distributor units installed in the cabin ceiling near the exit doors which allow connections to crew systems, such as interphone handsets, for example.
While such cabin management systems have proven their suitability for some aircrafts, they turn out to be rather bulky and complex for other aircrafts.
Accordingly, there is a demand to provide an improved aircraft cabin management technique.